Whaddaya mean, no one uses the gardens?

Cavalier Daily: Rejuvenating UVA. In the middle of an otherwise informative article on various preservation and restoration projects at Mr. Jefferson’s University is this gem: “Seldom visited by University students, the gardens [behind the Jeffersonian pavilions] are undergoing a revitalization process all their own” (emphasis added).

Hmm. Seldom visited by students, huh? Sure… during the day, that is. Where else do you think Lawnies take their dates at night?

Apropos of this discussion, there’s an illustration in one of the bound Pogo books from the late 1980s—I think it’s Phi Beta Pogo—that Walt Kelly executed for the cover of the Virginia Spectator, then UVA’s humor magazine, in the 1950s. It showed a tired-looking Albert and Pogo pushing an ice-cream cart down one of the roads behind the pavilions. From the bends in the serpentine walls (which were of exaggerated depth for effect) protruded pairs of “his and hers” feet—chastely lying side by side, before you ask—suggesting that whatever the kids were up to in the shadows of the walls, it was a lot more entertaining than the ice cream that Pogo and Albert were trying to sell. It’s a hell of a cover. I wish I could find a copy online; my description doesn’t do it justice. Maybe a friend in Charlottesville could look it up in the library?